I was hoping to get my coilovers all put together today but hit a road block. So what Im using is 280zx struts with the techno toy tuning coilover conversion kit with their camber plates as well. The damper inserts i bought (gabriel part# G44869) are supposed to be direct replacements for the 280zx struts but they do not even fit all the way inside the body and on top of that the inner diameter for the bearing in the camber plate is to small for the diameter of the strut insert. Does anybody know what inserts I am supposed to use?

mattbunzel wrote:I was hoping to get my coilovers all put together today but hit a road block. So what Im using is 280zx struts with the techno toy tuning coilover conversion kit with their camber plates as well. The damper inserts i bought (gabriel part# G44869) are supposed to be direct replacements for the 280zx struts but they do not even fit all the way inside the body and on top of that the inner diameter for the bearing in the camber plate is to small for the diameter of the strut insert. Does anybody know what inserts I am supposed to use?

I ran into the same thing. You will need to get the top of the insert turned down to the diameter of the hole in the camber plate. As for them not fitting all the way down in the body are you sure the struts are not shortened? Are the new ones the same as the ones that were removed?

If no one from the future comes back to stop you from doing it then how bad of a decision can it really be?

mattbunzel wrote:I was hoping to get my coilovers all put together today but hit a road block. So what Im using is 280zx struts with the techno toy tuning coilover conversion kit with their camber plates as well. The damper inserts i bought (gabriel part# G44869) are supposed to be direct replacements for the 280zx struts but they do not even fit all the way inside the body and on top of that the inner diameter for the bearing in the camber plate is to small for the diameter of the strut insert. Does anybody know what inserts I am supposed to use?

I ran into the same thing. You will need to get the top of the insert turned down to the diameter of the hole in the camber plate. As for them not fitting all the way down in the body are you sure the struts are not shortened? Are the new ones the same as the ones that were removed?

I dont believe they are shortened. Does anyone know of an insert that would work better and wouldn't require any machining of the insert. I have a hard time believing that T3 would provide a camber plate for a 280zx that dosent fit a stock 280zx insert. Im thinking the inserts i have are just wrong.

mattbunzel wrote:I dont believe they are shortened. Does anyone know of an insert that would work better and wouldn't require any machining of the insert. I have a hard time believing that T3 would provide a camber plate for a 280zx that dosent fit a stock 280zx insert. Im thinking the inserts i have are just wrong.

I am using the Koni Sport adjustable inserts and also had the KYB Gas inserts. Both needed machining.

If no one from the future comes back to stop you from doing it then how bad of a decision can it really be?

mattbunzel wrote:Bought one 92 mr2 rear insert at the local parts store yesterday to see if it was going to work and it did so ended up ordering 2 more online cause the price is much better.

Sounds like the struts have been shortened then if the MR2 inserts fit. Depending on the year, there were 2 different MR2 lengths, so you may have lucked out on getting the right one. When I cut and remachine a set, was they will look factory to the eye. If they have been cut and welded, that always stands out. Good that you have a solution.

Yeah i'm glad i was able to figure it out fairly easy. If some one cut and shortened these they did a damn good job i didn't see any signs at all. I ended up getting a little bit done over the holidays. Manage to finish the engine bay prep and laid down some primer and color. Its hard to tell in the picture but the last picture is the color which is a battle ship grey. In the first picture the primer is white but the lighting makes it hard to tell the two apart. And because it has been so cold i have been having to use a 60,000 btu heater to heat the car up for about an hour or so before and painting to make sure the paint cures right and then while its drying babysitting the paint and strategically moving the heater around to keep it all as close to 70 degrees as possible.

Button wrote:That's looking really nice and I like that battleship grey. Are you going to paint the whole car that color?

I'm really not sure what color i wanna paint the car but i figured battle ship grey goes with pretty much any color so i couldn't go wrong with it.

Finally my other strut insert came in today so i can finally finish the other coilover and while looking for sway bar bushings i came across an ebay ad for Turn Six sway bars front and rear with bushings and endlinks that were apparently purchased in the 90's but never installed. Ended up winning them for 75 bucks. Hopefully they truly have never been installed but if they have oh well, 75 bucks for front and rear after market sway bars is a steal. It still has been to cold to lay a second layer of paint down let alone work in the shop, when its below 30 in the shop without the heater not much gets done.

I've been super busy lately and haven't had much time to post pictures. So here is what I've been up too on the 510 since I last posted.Finished painting the engine bay, Color is battleship grey.Then started to install all my T3 suspension bits so the car could be a roller again.Then with all the suspension back together i decided to make all new brake lines. Time consuming process but it was worth it in the end.

Put the new L20b in place and started to run all the wiring, half way through i decided i wanted to tuck the harness, wish i would have thought about that before paint, could have eliminated a few holes in the engine bay. My dog helping me sort the wiring out. This thing was a rats nest underneath the dash and in the engine bay. Previous owners spliced into where ever they wanted sometimes only using tape to hold wires together and even ran wires across the engine bay to pull power from one side to the other.... I ended up cutting out a lot of junk wires and had to extend the engine bay wiring a foot and a half to be able to route it through the fender next to the upper frame rail. Overall It turned out pretty well the only wires you can see in the engine bay are the headlight plugs and then starter solenoid, power, and ground.Now that the engine bay was pretty much done i moved to the floor pans. Both front pans and the drivers side rear were rusted out. I ended up getting a set of pans from Mark Grimsley. Pans are great quality and only required a little massaging to work. I also had to rebuild the passenger side seat bracket because most of the bottom of it was rusted out. In addition a previous owner had cut a massive hole out in the trans tunnel around the shifter using tin snips and then patched the hole with thin galvanized sheet metal and rivets so i made a new piece for that as well while I was at it. I have some wiring wheel and cleaning up of the surface to do inside and then it will get primered and painted.